


The Extra Mile

by Haicrescendo



Series: Carry On For You [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, The pokemon au nobody asked for, badge challenger sokka, casual nightmare fuel, covertly horrible backshadowing, gym leader zuko, hand waving canon because fuck it, katara has Concerns, katara is so tired, memes as friendship, strongly implied Pokémon abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:41:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22295746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haicrescendo/pseuds/Haicrescendo
Summary: [“Let me remind you that I haven’t seen you in person in like, a month, Researcher Pakku gave me the week to hang out with you, and instead of giving your favorite sister your undivided attention, you’re texting some weirdo who sends you...memes?”“They’re really good memes, though!” Sokka protests, and shows her. Katara is not impressed.“...Sokka, it’s a picture of a dude and a Butterfree going ‘is this a Pidgey?’. I think you need better taste in memes. And maybe friends.”]Or,The one where Katara very seriously considers an intervention for her brother.
Relationships: Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Carry On For You [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1599013
Comments: 126
Kudos: 2463





	The Extra Mile

**Author's Note:**

> Here we are, part 2! If you’ve stuck around with me so far, thank you!! As always, if you enjoyed this please leave a comment and let me know and if you want updates, please bookmark the series!
> 
> I scream a lot about A:tLA on my tumblr @sword-and-stars.

* * *

“Who are you texting?”

“...Nobody.” Sokka turns away, but it doesn’t stop Katara from hovering judgmentally over his shoulder.

“Let me remind you that I haven’t seen you in person in like, a month, Researcher Pakku gave me the week to hang out with you, and instead of giving your favorite sister your undivided attention, you’re texting some weirdo who sends you...memes?”

“They’re really good memes, though!” Sokka protests and shows her. Katara is not impressed.

“...Sokka, it’s a picture of a dude and a Butterfree going ‘is this a Pidgey?’. I think you need better taste in memes. And maybe friends.”

“We’re not friends!”

“Really.”

“We’re rivals!”

“And how many times have you beaten your rival, Sokka?”

“ _ I’m working on it _ ,” Sokka grumbles but puts his phone away. Katara snags his coffee out of his hand and drains it. “What the hell?”

“I need it more than you do,” she says breezily and hops over the back of the couch to sit next to her brother. “Pakku might be the best in the field, but the hours are ridiculous.”

Katara’s internship with Pakku’s research lab is a great opportunity for her but is also completely insane, involving midnight observations and solo nights on the ocean. She loves it, but Sokka is always going to be a little bit stressed out about it until she has interns of her own that she can make do that.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

Katara pokes him in the cheek.

“Like you’re waiting for a Gyarados to come get me on some dark and scary midnight.” She grins and wiggles her fingers at him like a ghost until Sokka slaps them away.

“You used to be so sweet,” he complains. “What happened?”

“I’m still sweet, you’re just ridiculous.” Katara pushes the books stacked up on her coffee table to the floor and puts her feet up, slumping tiredly against Sokka’s shoulder. At her other side and taking up the entire rest of the sectional, Vaporeon and Glaceon are cuddling together like it’s been years since they’ve seen each other. Sokka gives Glaceon’s tail a fond tug and gets a kick in the thigh for his trouble. 

“Don’t pull his tail, Sokka.”

“He doesn’t care, do you, buddy?” Sokka leans over and flops on top of both of them. “We’re all good friends here.” Glaceon licks his ear.

Sokka’s phone gives a friendly little ping and Katara glances over to it. Her face shifts, just a little, into something serious.

“Hey...are you sure it’s a good idea for you to be friends with him?”

Sokka looks up at her.

“Not friends,” he says, “ _ Rivals. _ And why shouldn’t I be? He’s a weird dude, but I don’t think he’s a bad guy.”

“Still not a rival,” Katara can’t help pointing out just one more time, “But that’s not the point. I’m worried about it.”

Sokka looks at her hard. This isn’t her normal, exasperated-and-a-little-judgey-but-still-loving kind of concern. His little sister is very serious right now and twisting her hands in her lap.

“Okay.” Sokka adjusts himself on the couch and turns so he can face her. “Lay it on me. Why are you worried?”

She squirms a little and doesn’t want to look at him.

“It’s just...okay. I know you hate being reminded of this but you’ve been home the last few years. You didn’t  _ see  _ Aang’s battle with Azula in Vulca. You didn’t see his battle with Ozai. Sokka, it was  _ awful _ . They were both so  _ cruel _ .” Katara reaches out and grips Sokka by the hands, squeezes hard. “I’ve never been so afraid. Ozai’s Dragonite  _ dropped dead  _ when the battle was over. That’s how much they don’t care. About anyone.”

Despite himself, Sokka feels the bottom of his stomach drop out. It’s not that he’s necessarily gone out of his way to not look into certain events of the past few years, but he hasn’t gone out of his way to read up on them either. He thinks that maybe a part of him just didn’t want to know about it.

“I know you think that Zuko’s interesting or funny or cool or...whatever you think he is, but that’s his  _ family.  _ He’s Ozai’s kid. Azula’s sister. Families have things in common.”

“He’s not the same, though.” Sokka remembers the respectful, gentle way that Zuko treats his pokémon. The gentle way he had treated  _ Sokka’s _ pokémon. That kind of care isn’t something that someone can fake. He remembers the way he snarled in frustration at Iroh’s teasing over tea, with volume but not teeth. “He’s also, like, the complete and total opposite of cool.”

“Don’t play when I’m trying to be serious. You don’t  _ know _ . I just...I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Sokka sighs a little. More than anything right now, he regrets putting off leaving home for so long. Maybe if he hadn’t been so stubborn, he wouldn’t be feeling like he constantly had to catch up.

His baby sister’s gotten a job all on her own, without him. She’s made friends, all on her own, without him. Katara never wanted anything to do with the badge challenge but she ended up going anyway, and saw Aang through to being the region’s champion. And what’s Sokka done?

Become weird texting buddies with the gym leader he lost miserably to.

“I was relieved when that video came out. You know, the bad one, with Azula. Because if you’d met her, you’d have known that there was something not right with her. Same with Ozai. They’re  _ wrong _ in a big way.”

“And I’m telling you that Zuko’s different,” Sokka insists. “He’s a dick, okay, but he cares a lot about his pokémon. He cares a lot about other people’s pokémon. He’s  _ fine _ . Hold on.” Sokka unlocks his phone and snaps a quick photo of Vaporeon and Glaceon still snuggled up together. It’s an adorable picture and he’s never deleting it, ever.

He sends it to Zuko and waits.

A few seconds later he gets a response.

It’s literally just a series of exclamation points and a heart emoji but Sokka feels vindicated anyway. He shakes his phone at Katara.

“Does that look like someone possessing great evil to you?”

His phone pings again. Katara squints at the screen.

“....he just called you a loser.”

“He does that sometimes. Because we’re rivals.”

“Still not rivals.”

Katara lets the subject drop but Sokka has a feeling that she’s just waiting for another chance to bring it back up. He puts his phone on vibrate just in case.

* * *

When Sokka and Katara are very small, Mom comes home from her research trip with two pokémon. They’re both Eevee, tiny and wiggly and fluffy, and Sokka falls in love so quickly that he thinks he might die. One for him and one for Katara is what Mom says. Neither of them is old enough to even consider a trainer’s license but nothing says they can’t keep them as pets. Katara is just as smitten as he is, and instantly starts making up stories about how she hopes she can get her hands on an ice stone and have a Glaceon when she’s big enough. 

Sokka looks at Eevee curled up in his lap and says nothing. 

Mom asks, once, what he thinks he’d like Eevee to evolve into when he’s bigger, and all Sokka can do is shrug. He has no idea what he’ll want when the time comes. Maybe it shouldn’t be up to him.

Maybe Eevee doesn’t want to evolve at all.

Maybe it’s happy being an Eevee.

And then Mom’s gone and doesn’t come back. 

Sokka doesn’t understand the details because no one will tell him  _ anything _ , but Dad’s crying all the time and Gran-Gran is living at the house pretty much full-time to keep him together, and Bato keeps dragging Dad out for long fishing trips that last days at a time.

Sokka doesn’t let himself think about change at all and he sure as hell can't make himself think about letting Eevee evolve.

Eevee’s the last gift that Mom’s ever going to give him.

Katara asks him, once, what stone Sokka thinks he might use when he gets his license, and for a long minute all he can do is stare at her before he bursts into tears. It’s not her fault. She didn’t  _ know _ .

Even so, Katara doesn’t ask again and Sokka is grateful.

* * *

“Get your stuff, we’re going out,” Katara tells him the next morning. Sokka groans from underneath the blanket cocoon he’s swaddled himself in.

“Wha—?”

She rips it off his head, and Sokka screeches in the morning sunlight.

“Don’t be a baby. We’re gonna go be sociable. Aang said he’d meet us in Floral Village for lunch, so get moving.”

Sokka groans a little.

“It’s still morning, though.”

“Travel time is still a thing,” Katara tells him, matter of fact, “Go shower and put on something decent. Get to it.” She chops her hands. “Go, go.”

Sokka drags himself off the sofa and runs his hands through his hair. If he has to watch Aang make goo-goo eyes at Katara for hours today, he’s not sure what he’s going to do. 

Nevertheless, he showers and ties his hair back up and meets Katara at the door twenty minutes later.

“You’ve got your rail pass?”

Sokka whaps her on the nose with it.

“Quit mom’ing me. I’m bigger than you.”

They make the train by the skin of their teeth but it’s a beautiful morning and Sokka can’t be that annoyed about it. He leans back against the seat and listens contentedly to Katara’s bright, cheerful stories about her projects and her research collaboration with Yue on potion development. 

At some point, despite sleeping through the night, Sokka manages to doze off to the rhythmic clicking of the train and wakes up right before they get there. Katara laughs at the red mark on his forehead from the window.

Aang’s already at the restaurant when they get there, and he’s not alone. Sitting next to him is a short girl with dark hair and blank grey eyes and a Rockruff hanging out underneath the table, and Sokka brightens.

“I didn’t know he was bringing Toph.”

Toph is tiny and blind and rude as hell, and Sokka finds her endlessly entertaining, even when she spent half of their gym match making fun of him. He’d won in the end but it had not been easy, and he’d come out of it with an awful nickname, too.

“Snoozles!” The girl straightens and starts waving. “It’s been a hot second.”

“Hey. Please tell me that you haven’t ordered yet.” Sokka says and flings himself into the chair next to her. She scowls.

“Twinkletoes wouldn’t let me, but we got you guys drinks.”

“That’s almost nice of you.”

“Don’t get used to it.” Toph punches him in the shoulder.

And there are the goo-goo eyes, Sokka notes with resignation across the table. Aang’s a good kid— a  _ really _ good kid, he mentally amends, but he has a hard time keeping his feelings to himself and off the lunch table. He looks at Toph and wishes, not for the first time, that he could be selectively blind.

“How’d your battle go down in Vulca?” Toph asks him out of the blue right as Sokka takes a bite of his sandwich, and he chokes on it.

Katara opens her mouth and Sokka flaps a hand at her.

“Don’t say a word,” he grumbles at her, “Not a word.” He turns back to Toph. “I lost big time.” She doesn’t look surprised but shakes her head a little.

“Not a shock,” she says, “Sparky’s tough stuff, and he doesn’t play.”

“Katara thinks he’s evil.”

Katara sputters at being thrown under the bus, but Toph just cackles and cracks her knuckles. 

“He ain’t evil. He’s a shit. Tell him about what he said to you at the champion ceremony, Twinkletoes.”

Aang chews on his lip and squirms in his chair.

“He just told me congratulations!”

Toph leans back.

“The other part.”

“And that the only reason I was going to stay on the podium was because he was going to let me.”

“And the  _ other  _ other part.”

“And that if I ever wanted to complete my set of wins against his family, then I was welcome to show up in Vulca and try. And then he left before anyone could interview him.”

Toph gives an unflattering snort of laughter and Aang just looks wryly embarrassed as he eats a spoonful of soup. 

“Sokka’s decided that he wants to be  _ friends _ with that maniac— and don’t you dare say  _ rivals _ .”

Toph shrugs.

“He’s a good choice,” she says bluntly. “He’s a mess and kind of a jerk sometimes, but he’s decent. How that happened, knowing who he’s related to, is a miracle.” She brushes off Katara’s protests. “We get each other because we don’t really like a lot of people. He’s not friendly, but he’s  _ good _ . I get that.” Toph takes a vicious bite of her sandwich. “He always asks me to hide him during League events.”

Despite herself and her determination to dislike Zuko, Katara can’t help but laugh. She worries, still, but Toph is a good judge of character, and Sokka may be trusting, but he’s not stupid. Maybe she jumped the gun a little?

Or maybe not.

Silently, she decides to reserve judgement, and ignores Sokka pulling his phone out of his pocket and covertly texting under the table. If he wants to try and be sneaky about it, that’s his business. Katara has better things to do— like stealing Aang’s fries right out from under him.

* * *

From: Loser

_ [dude I hope u appreciate how cool toph is.] _

To: Loser

_ [way cooler than you.] _

From: Loser

_ [rude. she said rly nice stuff about u. i thought she was allergic to love and affection.] _

To: Loser

_ [Gross. Keep your feelings away from me.] _

From: Loser

_ [they’re not gonna give u cooties u know] _

To: Loser

_ [ ಠ_ಠ they fucking might] _

From: Loser

_ [come on, just admit once that you think im great] _

Zuko stares up at his phone, held up above his face as he lays flat on his back on his bed. He types out a response, deletes it, types another, deletes it too. Idly, he scrolls back up through their text history, scrolls back down.

Zuko rolls over and presses his face into Vulpix’s warm, russet side, takes a deep breath, and then edits his contacts before he can change his mind.

To: Sokka

_ [You've gotta beat me first. Then we’ll talk.] _

  
  


* * *

  
  
  



End file.
